When my home heat pump was replaced last year, I kept the squirrel cage unit, and the outside cooler 220 volt motors and fans..I am no electrician for sure, but wanted to see if the motors would run at 120 volts. They did, and quite well. I don’t know if I am asking for trouble or not, but they sure help keep the shop cool this summer. I can tell by watching the electric power meter outside that the spinning meter wheel does not seem to be spinning faster when the motors are running.
Am I headed for trouble, or is this a good thing?
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!
Replies
I use an old heat pump type condenser fan and it does run on 220 but there is a starter thing like a battery with terminals on top and I hooked a few wires up and it fires away.
Does your unit utilize any kind of ignition or starter ?
The motors I have had run on 110 when they were wired for 220 did not run well in general and certainly would not be an advantage to run them wrong .
My motors ran sluggish , your's sound fine so , not sure .
unless you changed the wiring config to run on 110 don't do it
been there done that
regards dusty,not sparky
I did study the wiring diagram first, and rerouted the power to what I thought would be a 120 configuration, and was surprised when it worked. Thanks for the input!
One motor motor had a fat condensor for starting, so I rewired the motor AND AWAY WE WENT. I lucked out. Thanks for the input. I do precision guess-work.
It's likely they are 120volt fans. Just because 240volts feeds the units doesn't mean that the fan's aren't 120v. The compressor and strip heaters need the higher voltage but the fans could easily be fed from one leg of the 240v.
Thanks for the input. I enjoy learning from you guys. keep it up!
The motors are wired for 120 V operation. If not, they would be overheating badly. As far as your meter not runnung faster, I can assure you the that the power is being metered. Utility companies, like banks, never lose money...
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